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Opinion | Social media is riskier for kids than 'screen time' – The Washington Post

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Suppose your 13-year-old daughter wants to subsist on candy during this drawn-out pandemic, and she challenges you to prove that candy is bad for her. For help, you turn to the Internet — and find many newspaper articles with headlines like “Don’t freak out about sweets for teens!”

You are surprised to find that many of the scientific papers these articles are based on use a very broad definition of “sweets” — one that included not only candy and soda but also fresh fruit, carrots, and beets because of their sugar content. But you wonder: What if the research had been based on what your daughter is really after — junk foods with lots of refined sugar, such as candy and soda?

This is where we are with research on digital media use and mental health among teens — a place where the most-cited studies are obscuring real risks.

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Nearly all the articles telling parents not to worry about their children’s media consumption cite studies about “screen time” or “digital technology use.” But this is a broad category that resembles defining “sweets” as everything from carrots to candy instead of considering which activities might be worse than others.

One of the most widely cited studies, from a research team at the University of Oxford, used an advanced statistical technique to run more than 60,000 analyses on three large data sets. They found that teens’ screen time does indeed correlate with poor mental health but also found that “the association of well-being with regularly eating potatoes was nearly as negative as the association with technology use,” a conclusion that made headlines.

The paper’s definition of “screen time” included watching TV or simply owning a computer as well as healthy social interaction such as talking with friends on the phone. It also included social media, known for being more performative and toxic. Does the story change when we limit the analysis to social media, which is where teenagers gather most often?

It does, enormously. In a new paper, we used the same advanced statistical technique and found that the link between social media use and poor mental health for girls was 10 times as large as what the Oxford paper identified for “screen time.” A recent paper by two Spanish statisticians also examined the Oxford researchers’ techniques and also found a much stronger link. These findings fit with Facebook’s internal research, leaked by a whistleblower and published last fall, which concluded that Instagram led to depression and body image issues, particularly among teenage girls.

The new study shows that, for girls in particular, the correlation between mental health and social media use is larger than that between mental health and binge drinking, early sexual activity, hard drug use, being suspended from school, marijuana use, lack of exercise, being stopped by police, and carrying a weapon. That does not mean these unwise activities are safer than social media use. But it does mean that if we’re going to dismiss social media for small statistical associations, we’ll also have to dismiss a long list of activities routinely targeted for public health interventions.

If you wonder what this link looks like in practical terms, consider this figure: Heavy social media users are two to three times more likely to be depressed than nonusers. Knowing that, would you let your kids spend unlimited time on Instagram?

Of course, correlation does not prove causation. Perhaps depression comes first, which causes depressed teens to seek solace on social media. That may be part of the story, but many experiments show that the causal arrow does go from social media use to depression.

So what should you do if your 13-year-old daughter launches a dispute similar to what we described above about candy: She wants to spend eight hours a day on her phone, and she challenges you to say why she shouldn’t? First, talk to her about her goals and what matters to her — how does she want to spend her time? How does she feel when she FaceTimes her friends, compared withwhen she scrolls through the pages of Instagram influencers? Discuss how social media apps are designed to keep people using them as long as possible, because that’s how the companies make the most money. If your child is 12 or younger, the decision is even more straightforward: 13 is the minimum age to have an account under the social media platforms’ rules, so just say no.

Our finding, that social media has a stronger link to mental health problems than “screen time” more generally, is good news for parents. Instead of being faced with the nearly impossible task of controlling all of our children’s technology use, we can zero in on the activities that appear to be the most harmful, especially social media.

That’s no small potatoes.

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued – CTV News

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued  CTV News

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India’s media – captured and censored

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Across almost every form of media in India – social, broadcast and print – Narendra Modi and the BJP hold sway.

With India amid a national election campaign, its news media is in sharp focus. Until recently it was believed that the sheer diversity of outlets ensured a range of perspectives, but now, India’s mainstream media has largely been co-opted by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just how did the media in India get to this point and what does it mean for the upcoming elections?

Featuring:

Ravish Kumar – Former Host, NDTV
Shashi Shekhar Vempati – Former CEO, Prasar Bharati
Pramod Raman – Chief Editor, MediaOne
Amy Kazmin – Former South Asia Bureau Chief, Financial Times
Meena Kotwal – Founder, The Mooknayak

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Social media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards

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Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against multiple social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.

The school boards, including three in the Greater Toronto Area, have launched lawsuits seeking $4.5 billion in damages against Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, the owner of both Facebook and Instagram, for creating products that they allege negligently interfere with student learning and have caused “widespread disruption to the education system.”

But at an unrelated news conference in Ottawa on Friday, Ford said that he “disagrees” with the legal action and worries it could take the focus away from “the core values of education.”

“Let’s focus on math, reading and writing. That is what we need to do, put all the resources into the kids,” he said. “What are they spending lawyers fees to go after these massive companies that have endless cash to fight this? Let’s focus on the kids, not this other nonsense that they are looking to fight in court.”

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Four separate but similar statements of claim were filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of JusticSocial media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, a rapid escalation of aggression, and mental health challenges,” Colleen Russell-Rawlins, the director of education with the Toronto District School Board, said in a news release issued Thursday.

“It is imperative that we take steps to ensure the well-being of our youth. We are calling for measures to be implemented to mitigate these harms and prioritize the mental health and academic success of our future generation.”

The school boards are represented by Toronto-based law firm Neinstein LLP and the news release states that school boards “will not be responsible for any costs related to the lawsuit unless a successful outcome is reached.”

These lawsuits come as hundreds of school districts in the United States file similar suits.

“A strong education system is the foundation of our society and our community. Social media products and the changes in behaviour, judgement and attention that they cause pose a threat to that system and to the student population our schools serve,” Duncan Embury, the head of litigation at Neinstein LLP, said in the new release.

“We are proud to support our schools and students in this litigation with the goal of holding social media giants accountable and creating meaningful change.”

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